


you and i, caught in a fading light

by nadin



Category: Snowpiercer (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Pre-show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: It started, ironically and not at all surprisingly, with some trouble with the train.Moments from the relationship between Melanie Cavill and Bennett Knox over the years.
Relationships: Melanie Cavill/Bennett Knox
Comments: 14
Kudos: 42





	you and i, caught in a fading light

**Author's Note:**

> My mind is still reeling from the finale and I truly want to believe these two will fix their issues quickly in Season 2 (Is it Season 2 o'clock yet??) I mean, he did something dumb but he had good intentions so...
> 
> For now, here's the evolution of their relationship and just a lot of fluff, I guess?

When the Freeze first started, no one had thought that it would last. No one had assumed that it could get this bad.

People, Melanie Cavill had learned in the years following the first signs of something going wrong, were optimists by nature.

There wasn’t much hope left by the time she and some 3000 odd souls had boarded Snowpiercer. There was only survival, each and every single one of them operating on basic instincts more than anything else. Going through motions because to stop and to think would mean to die—from the cold as much as despair.

By the time she boarded Snowpiercer, she had started to wonder how much of her was covered with ice on the inside.

She was checking the system logs in the Engine one night, the track stretching ahead of them as far as the eye could see, when a cup of coffee appeared by her elbow.

Melanie looked up to find Bennett Knox standing beside her, his gaze trained on the darkness outside the window.

“You looked like you could use this,” he said when he glanced down and found her studying him.

She offered him a small smile. “Thanks, Ben.”

He nodded, his hand brushing briefly over her shoulder before he returned to his own seat and his own coffee and security protocols he’d been tweaking all day.

Melanie followed him with his gaze.

“If there's anyone who can do this, it’s probably you,” he had told her one of the first days after the departure, regarding the whole _no-Wilford-saving-the-world_ issue that still burned her mind and made everything inside of her constrict now and then.

She didn’t remember much from those first days, her memory of them a blur of things that needed to be fixed and things that required adjusting to, requests and demands and the fear of the unknown. But she remembered a steady assuredness in his voice, and earnesty in his eyes that had anchored her. She remembered wanting to believe him.

* * *

It started, ironically and not at all surprisingly, with some trouble with the train. A year in, Melanie didn’t know the train that well yet, despite being the one who had built her. Didn’t feel her the way she would, eventually, though she was getting there.

There was a leaking hose or a broken valve or maybe a loose something or other—which was exactly what they had been trying to figure out for the past twenty minutes, running diagnostics of everything they could think of.

“I think it’s near the border between the second and the third,” Javi said while Melanie tried to quell the rising panic.

She knew, perhaps better than anyone else on Snowpiercer, than there was no such thing as an eternal engine. That there was no eternal _anything,_ come to think of it. And she had known all along that sooner or later, the trouble would come—parts breaking and systems failing—and that at the end of the day, it would be up to her to make sure that they didn’t derail and froze to their deaths, all 1001 cars at the mercy of her ability to keep her mind clear in the time of crisis.

Sooner or later, but, perhaps, not this soon. Yet, here they were, two revolutions into their journey that, for all she knew, would require a thousand more before there was a solution to the Freeze and a way to survive in the world that was nothing like the one she had once known.

She took a breath around panic sitting heavy in her chest and willed her heartbeat to slow down.

They needed to fix the train, they needed to fix what was broken before it was too late.

“Start the full scan,” she said to Javi, her voice steady despite the turmoil that had her stomach in knots. She turned on her heel, headed towards the exit. “I have the specs in my room, I just need… Ben?”

“Yeah, coming.” He jumped out of his chair immediately, the sound of his footfalls on the metal floor following after her.

By the time he reached her room, she was already rummaging through her books piled on empty bunks and crowding every spare shelf she had. Nearly a year into this journey, and she still hadn’t found the time to organize it all properly—something that Melanie was paying dearly for right now.

“It’s a moleskin journal,” she said, gesturing towards a stack of boxes in the corner. “Blue cover.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw him pull something out of one of the boxes with a chuckle. _“One Hundred Years of Solitude?”_ he asked, amusement clear in his voice.

The corner of Melanie’s mouth quirked upwards. “Well, we are headed in that direction, aren’t we?”

Where the hell was the damned journal? Unbidden, she glanced towards the door, hearing the clock ticking in her head, the seconds chasing one another in her bloodstream. She could swear she heard the rattling of that damaged part that had sent their system into an overdrive half an hour ago from 500 cars away.

“It’s gotta be here somewhere,” she muttered under her breath as she pulled the books from the shelf near her desk, checking each of them on the off chance it was the one.

“This one?”

She felt Bennett move behind her, his hand reaching over her head as he pulled something from the upper shelf that she had yet to get to.

A sigh of relief stuttered from her chest, the sudden adrenaline rush nearly making her knees buckle a little.

“Yes, that’s the one,” she breathed a sigh of relief and turned around—only to find her eyes level with his chin and her entire body nearly pressed against the whole length of his.

For a long moment, neither of them moved as they stood there, breathing the same air. She liked the way he smelled—of coffee and man and that aftershave that she had long learned to associate a sense of certain comfort with.

Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his, watching his eyes grow dark. Through the blood rush in her ears, she heard his breath hitch a little. She knew what was going to happen even before he set her journal down and his hands came up to cup over her face. Melanie’s fingers curled around a fistful of his jumpsuit, giving it just enough tug to bring his mouth to hers. It was a hungry kiss, his mouth hot and eager against hers like he’d wanted to kiss her for a long time, and now that it was happening, there was no holding back.

She felt his fingers weave into her hair, unravelling the knot near the nape of her neck. He made a sound in the back of his throat, teeth nipping at her bottom lip and sending a surge of heat through her system—

The train shuddered and he broke the kiss, glancing around as the lights flickered once, then twice.

“The Engine,” Melanie murmured, her throat dry, both of them panting.

The specs that she needed, she reminded herself. Why they’d come to her questers in the first place.

“Yeah,” he breathed, his hands falling from her face, although not without some reluctance. “Right.”

They ended up in bed together two days later, 270 days after they had boarded Snowpiercer.

Afterwards, Melanie was sitting on the bunk bed in his quarters, her back against a wall. Wearing one of his shirts, she was watching Bennett, clad in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, rummaging through a cupboard in his minuscule kitchen in search of some snacks for them.

She watched his muscles roll beneath his skin, her gaze mapping the lines of his back, the ease with which he seemed to always carry himself. And she tried to remember how long she had known that they were going to end up like this, in his bed or hers. When had a tentative _if_ become a sure _when_. If there even had been an _if,_ come to think of it, or if they were falling towards one another since day one.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company,” he said, his tone apologetic as he turned around and tossed her an apple that Melanie caught effortlessly with one hand.

She grinned. “Maybe the next time I’ll bring a gift basket with me,” she offered.

“A-ha!” His face split into a triumphant smile as he pulled a packet of crackers from the top shelf, and she pressed her lips around her smile, a pang of affection arcing through her chest at the sight of it. He plopped down next to her and leaned back as well, their shoulders touching. “Next time, huh?” he asked, an eyebrow raised, as he looked at her.

She pushed her hand through her hair as she let out a soft chuckle. But then there it was—a shadow of vulnerability chasing across his features that had her swallowing a witty comeback rolling on the tip of her tongue. One that made something tender inside of her ache.

She set the apple down on the mattress between them and lifted her hand to his face, her thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone.

“Maybe I could even get my hands on one of those fruit platters that they serve to the first for dinner,” she whispered, her throat tight for reasons she couldn’t name.

The corner of his mouth curled upwards. He leaned forward and bumped his nose against her, earning quiet laughter from her in response. “Yeah, I’d like that,” he whispered the moment before their lips met. 

* * *

Melanie Cavill had a long list of things she would never forgive herself for, from before Snowpiercer and from after. She knew that because a whole lot of them were something that kept her awake at night, the endless cycle of guilt and shame and remorse from leading the society she had inherited in ways she often knew not how to fix.

It was what had stopped her from uncoupling the Tail even though she knew that the train could barely support them, the resources of Snowpiercer already spread so thin. It was what had pushed her to mend this and patch that and try to create something out of nothing just so they could keep going another hour, day, week.

But she had never, not even for one moment, imagined that forgetting her daughter’s birthday would be something that she would add to that list, eventually.

For the longest time, a few revolutions, at least, Melanie had lived in a state of wild, consuming hope, peering closely into every face, tracking down every passenger she could think of, certain that Allie would be one of them. That their separation was nothing but a silly misunderstanding that they would laugh off, together.

Until hope turned into acceptance, turned into grief, turned into a dull ache in the centre of her solar plexus that pulsed like a second heartbeat. Until it started to ebb, the vice around her chest no longer preventing her from taking breath after breath.

Until she had walked into her quarters one night, dead-tired and half-asleep on her feet, and realized with abject horror that her daughter would have turned 9 today—if everything has worked out differently; if she had lived long enough.

She pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle the pain clawing its way out of her throat.

How could she—

The tears came before Melanie knew to stop them, her throat tight until she could no longer draw a breath, all the longing and missing and guilt—god, so much guilt—coalescing in her chest, their sharp edges threatening to slice her in half from the inside.

With shaking fingers, she reached for one of the photos taped to the inside of her closet, mouthing a soundless _I’m sorry_ over and over again as she slid down to the floor, her vision blurred and her heart splintering with every breath.

She cried until there were no tears left to cry and everything inside of her felt raw and tender and aching. Until she felt completely hollowed out and frozen and numb.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, curled in on herself, wrapped in pain and self-loathing like it was a barbwire that kept her from moving, willing herself to disappear.

A knock on the door gave Melanie a start. She snapped her head up, her heart slamming hard against the inside of her ribs—once, twice.

“Yeah?” she called, her voice hoarse, as she hastily wiped her cheeks.

“Hey, I can’t find…” Bennett started as soon as the door slid open with a quiet woosh. He paused when he saw her sitting on the floor, his eyes sliding over her face, as he finished, “…the maintenance log.”

And just like that, the moment was over. The train demanded her full attention once again.

She took a breath and pulled herself up to her feet.

“Yeah, it should be…”

Absently, she reached to tuck her hair behind her ears as she turned towards her desk without looking at him. 

“Mel.”

She didn’t pause, her fingers pushing aside the books and journals stacked before her. Maintenance log, she was sure she had seen it—

“Melanie.”

His hand on her wrist, Bennett stopped her, made her turn to him. She felt his palm slide up her arm until her face was cupped in his hands. His thumb brushed over her cheek as his eyes searched hers. It was only then that she noticed that her lips were quivering, her breaths still coming out of short, shaky gasps as though she had spent the past several years running away from her past, never once stopping to inhale.

“Come here,” he murmured.

She didn’t resist when he pulled her towards him, when his arms wrapped around her.

It was so easy to give in, to sink into him. To let someone else hold the parts of her that felt like they no longer fit and hadn’t for a long time.

She could feel the warmth of him through his jumpsuit, could hear his heart beating, and there was a gentleness to the way he held her she didn’t feel she deserved. Suddenly, she wanted to break free because it hurt—it hurt to feel so much. But he held on, his hand running over her back, smoothing down her hair, his voice a low whisper in her ear, until her breathing evened out again, and her heartbeat slowed down its pace.

And so she buried her face in his chest as her arms wound around him, and let him carry her through this storm.

* * *

When Melanie walked into the movie theatre one afternoon, he was tinkering with something behind the projector mounted on the wall.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” she asked, her gaze sweeping over the dozen rows of seats and searching for… something, really. _Anything_ to justify her being summoned there because it was _urgent._

Bennett glanced at her, the corner of his mouth lifting into that half-smile that she knew to be suspicious.

“Well, for one thing, the movie is about to start,” he informed her as he straightened up, seemingly satisfied with whatever he’d accomplished.

Melanie cocked an eyebrow at him. “Javi said that the projector was broken.”

He chuckled. “That’s the party line, yeah.”

He gestured towards the front row and some snacks piled on one of the seats.

She pressed her lips around a smile and gave him a look that was a mixture of fondness and exasperation.

“Ben, I can’t just—” she started.

“Why?” he interjected. “When was the last time you sat down for more than five minutes? I’m not even going to ask you when was the last time you ate or slept, Mel.”

She sighed and rubbed her eyes.

He was right. The only reason she was not running on empty was because Jinju had shoved a protein bar into her hand at some point during the morning. The morning that had started entirely too early for Melanie’s liking. In Bennett’s bed, too, if she recalled correctly but that was beyond the point. Or was it yesterday? She could no longer remember. And then there were supplies to be inventoried and maintenance to be observed and announcements to be made and fights between workers in Third to be broken up, and in-between all that—a million and a half things she could hardly remember by now.

When she had taken over Snowpiercer some three and a half years ago, she knew what she was getting herself into, more or less. She just never realized how much of _everything_ there would be that needed to be done. How never-ending it would feel.

Maybe he had a point. Just this once.

Maybe he saw what she had long stopped paying attention to.

“Is this beer?” Melanie asked, spotting two bottles of the train brew sitting in cup holders.

Ben let out a short laugh. “Your favourite.”

She tilted her head. “I can’t drink on duty.”

“Well, you’re not on duty for the next—” he checked his watch, “—two hours and fifteen minutes.”

He waited, a silent question in his eyes. And she knew that if she turned around and went back to putting out fires here and boosting morale there, he would not try to stop her. They would likely never speak of this again, either. And he would understand without her having to explain anything because he always did.

But it was not about the film—and god help her, she truly could not remember the last time she had watched one uninterrupted—or beer, or even having an unscheduled break, a luxury she seldom allowed herself to indulge in. It was about someone caring, about the gesture and thought and—

Melanie locked the door and stepped out of the shoes, leaving them by the back row. She watched his smile grow wider as she padded towards the front of the car, the carpet soft beneath her stockinged feet.

She took a seat, stretching her legs before her, and he plopped down next to her.

“Wait, are those Oreos?” Her eyes widened when he moved his haul aside so as not to sit on it. “Where on Earth did you get them?”

“Black market,” Ben informed her. “I’m serious,” he insisted when she arched a skeptical brow at him. “Where else do you think I’d find something that’s gone out of production ten years ago?”

“I probably don’t want to know.” She took a sip of her beer and tipped her head back, closing her eyes as it trickled down her throat, cold and pleasantly refreshing. “Hell, yeah,” she breathed.

She popped one eye open, and then another, to find him studying her.

“Thank you,” she said.

His expression softened. “I hope you like _Raiders of the Lost Ark.”_

Melanie bumped her shoulder against his. “We're living it, aren't we?”

He laughed and then grabbed hold of her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Is this a date?” she asked half-way through the film.

Which was, admittedly, an odd notion, considering how well he knew every inch of her body, and she—his. They’d never needed a date for that.

Bennett turned to her. She watched his lips curve into a slow smile. He glanced behind them before his gaze moved back to hers, his eyes searching her face.

“No, but it could be if we end up making out in the back row,” he offered.

He let go of her hand and brushed a thumb over the corner of her mouth. She watched his gaze drop down to her lips, and there was only so much she could do before her hand was curling over the back of his neck and pulling him towards her to bridge what little space was still left between them.

They didn’t move to the back row, but they made it a date when he walked her to her quarters after her shift at the Engine later that night, making a big show of it, and then didn’t leave until the next morning.

* * *

Midway through the 12th revolution, Melanie caught the flu. Or a cold. Or some other nasty thing that could very easily wipe out half of the population of Snowpiercer if it spread. One that left her feeling miserable and weak and icky, her throat scratchy and her nose runny. One that effectively confined her to her quarters for days on end until she was deemed safe for everyone else.

Ruth had taken over the train announcements, and Melanie knew that she could trust Ben and Javi to keep the Engine in check. Deep down, she was aware that after four years, and counting, the train was not likely to fall apart with her being out of commission for a few days. But it didn’t stop her from itching to check on everything, to keep everything under control even when she could barely think straight.

 _“I swear to god I’ll disconnect this line,”_ Bennett threatened her after she called the Engine seven times in one morning to check on the status and updates and whatnot.

“You can’t do that, it’s against safety protocols,” Melanie reminded him.

 _“Watch me,”_ he muttered, chuckling under his breath.

“She sounds wrong.”

 _“She’s fine, Mel, I promise you. Have some sleep.”_ There was a pause when she thought he’d hung up, before he added, quietly. _“I do wish you were here.”_

Jinju stopped by three times a day to check on her and bring her food—the good stuff from Third that Melanie preferred over the pretentious dishes the first class favoured so.

But the rest of the time, it was just her, and the thoughts she had spent the past fifty-odd months running away from, working twenty hours a day and desperately clawing her grief from under her skin as best she could the rest of the time—something that felt worse than the ever-present headache pulsing behind her eyes. And that, she hated more than anything. Memories and despair and mistakes she knew she would never be able to put behind her.

Bennett showed up on the third day, in the mid-afternoon.

He didn’t knock. He simply opened the door and stepped inside, sporting a surgical mask that hid most of his face and carrying a Tupperware container with what she suspected was chicken soup in his hands.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Melanie said, though her voice lacked the sternness she meant to convey. “I’m contagious.”

“Hence, the mask,” he countered, pointing at his face as though there was a chance she might have missed it.

She couldn’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head. “Jinju wears a full hazmat suit,” she told him, all the same. 

“Yeah, well. Not everyone can pull that off.”

There was a smile in his voice, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and she wished that she could see that wry upturn of his mouth beneath his mask. The comfort of it, of him being there, almost too much to bear.

He stuck the soup into her microwave and rolled her desk chair closer to Melanie’s bed.

“You look like shit,” he said as he reached over to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.

(She tried not to think of when was the last time she brushed it, or what it looked like.)

She scoffed. “And they say romance is dead.”

Ben chuckled and took her hand, kissing the tips of her fingers through his mask.

“I missed you,” he said quietly, honestly.

He stayed with her while she ate, catching her up on repairs and maintenance works and some gossip he’d caught from engineers downtrain. She had missed this, she realized. Missed it more than she knew or ever imagined she would.

It did not surprise Melanie one bit when a week later, he was the one in bed, running a fever and throwing up every now and then, looking as bad as she’d felt not so long ago. When it was her who had to stop by his quarters during her break with a care package and a couple of books.

“This is all your fault, you know that, right?” he grumbled from his bed where he lay looking pale and very unwell.

Melanie smirked. “I would argue that this is _your_ fault,” she said, holding his gaze.

She pressed her palm to his forehead—warmer than normal but not overly so, she noted. She knew from Jinju that he was doing well enough, all things considered. (They had both gotten quite an earful for his impromptu visits—and rightfully so, perhaps; things about being _crazy_ and _irresponsible,_ but there was nothing that could be done about that now.)

She let her fingers comb through his hair, and he caught her hand before she drew it back and held it against his cheek, turning a little into her touch to kiss her on the palm, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Worth it,” he said. His smile was tired and weary, but it made something warm unravel in her chest all the same.

* * *

It felt, sometimes, like he had taken over her life by osmosis, taking without asking before she had a chance to so much as blink.

She found him brushing his teeth in her bathroom one morning, bleary-eyed and only half-awake, by the looks of it. When did he bring a spare toothbrush? Did he pilfer one from her own stash? She couldn’t remember him asking; couldn’t remember saying yes, either.

She watched him through the half-open door, trying to figure out when exactly had this become the new normal. Him staying over more often than not, finding his clothes in her laundry now and then, his books among hers—when had that stopped giving her a pause and become a source of comfort to her instead.

Melanie wedged her way inside next to him, already short for time, and grabbed her own toothbrush as her gaze found his in the mirror. He smiled, as much as he could, and she was suddenly overcome with the feeling of longing she had no right to own.

When Bennett finished, rinsing his mouth, drying his face, he dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“I’m going to start the coffee,” he murmured, his hand brushing over her lower back as he squeezed past her on his way out of the bathroom.

She heard him get dressed as she turned on the shower and stripped down. Heard the door close behind him as she stepped under the sprays of water. Oddly, she found herself wishing he’d stayed.

When she walked into the Engine ten minutes later, he was sitting in the front seat, going through the logs from the previous night and Javi’s reports from his shift. There was a cup of coffee waiting for her—two sugars, no cream—and a bowl of cereal that they would likely share because she didn’t have time for breakfast today, or any day for the rest of this week.

Melanie picked up her coffee, her gaze sliding over the map on the screen above Javi’s usual seat, before she made her way to the front, the heels of her shoes clacking on the metal floor the only sound beyond the barely audible hum of the train. She peeked over Ben’s shoulder, checked the stats, satisfied with the numbers. They were holding steady, keeping the good speed, and that was a relief. She had long learned not to take good days for granted.

“We’re on a good stretch of track today,” she said, her eyes moving towards the endless expanse of white outside the window.

Bennett rubbed his eyes. “Small mercies,” he hummed, stifling a yawn.

Melanie smiled, her hand moving absently across his shoulders, back and forth, feeling his muscles relax beneath her touch.

“Thank you,” she said as she took a sip of her coffee.

He looked up, eyes searching her face for a moment or two, the same way they had the night before when they—Well.

“What’s on your docket for today?”

“You know, the usual,” Melanie said with feigned casualness. “Playing politics and making sure humanity doesn’t go extinct.”

A slow smile stretched across his face, and she was helpless against the urge to lift her hand and thread her fingers through his hair.

He leaned into it; into her. “Give ‘em hell,” he muttered into her perfectly pressed blazer.

* * *

“You should go have some rest,” she told him one night as they swapped posts.

For all the darkness and long hours, Melanie loved night shifts when her attention was seldom needed elsewhere. When the rest of the train—most of it, at least—was sound asleep.

Ben stifled a yawn. She watched him debate his options for a moment or two before he moved to the coffee maker to pour himself another cup—she wasn’t sure which one was it; didn’t want to ask.

“Nah, I think I’ll hang out here for a bit,” he said, glancing at her with a silent question in his eyes. If she asked him to leave, he would, she knew.

She merely nodded.

They ended up playing chess for half of the night, for lack of better ideas.

“Grey asked me out today,” Melanie noted noncommittally at some point while she considered her next move on the board.

Ben folded his arms on the table. She could feel him studying her.

“Yeah? What did you say?”

She moved her bishop and pressed her lips around a smile.

“I said yes,” she responded, trying to keep her face straight as she propped her elbow on the desk and rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “And then we ran away together and eloped in Vegas.”

Ben arched his eyebrow. “Oh, is that where you are right now?”

She laughed, feeling silly and light and, strangely, content.

“Right in the middle of the desert,” she confirmed.

He chuckled.

“Figures.”

She won both games, crushing him mercilessly. Yet, when their eyes met, there was nothing but affection in his gaze. Trust, too. He knew full well, better than anyone else on Snowpiercer perhaps, how precarious their situation was. And he trusted her to know how to keep them going.

She wondered if he knew how much it meant to her. Especially on days when she hardly trusted herself at all.

“Come over later,” he asked quietly when Melanie finally convinced him to go to bed, the time nearing 2 in the morning and his own shift inching closer with every passing moment.

His arms slipped around her and he ducked his head, tucking his face into the crook of her neck. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to melt into him, arms weaving around his neck and her fingers running idly through his hair.

“Get some sleep,” she murmured, the makings of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I have a day off tomorrow.”

He let out a soft laugh, his lips grazing along the underside of her jaw. “Even better.”

* * *

Melanie used to wonder—still did, on occasion—if theirs was a relationship that stemmed from convenience. If working in close quarters year after year and those long hours were meant to push them towards one another, setting them on the path of least resistance. If being with Bennett was good because the sex was good, plain and simple.

But then she would find herself missing him at odd moments, simply because they’d go a full day without crossing paths, him in the Engine and her placating First or keeping peace downtrain. Or she’d catch him looking at her when they worked together, with the corner of his mouth curled into a half-smile that never failed to make something unspool in her chest. Or he’d just be there for her without her having to say a word, asking for nothing in return. On Snowpiercer, where everything had a price, that was something that could never be overlooked.

And then it wouldn’t be that simple even if she sometimes wanted it to be.

She called the Engine three nights after their chess shift. He picked up on the second ring.

_“This is Bennett.”_

“Hey, what’s an eight-letter word for _Open secret?”_ she asked.

Half sitting in her bunk bed, she was squinting at the crossword puzzle before her and the last five words that she couldn’t seem to figure out, and trying not to think that her alarm was going to go off in only a few hours.

 _“Oxymoron,”_ Ben said without missing a beat. _“Can’t sleep?”_

Nightmares. Five years later, she was still dreaming of that first day—the first couple of days, actually—when she had tried to find her family among the passengers, convinced for blissful 48 hours that they were there somewhere. Before the realization had caught up with her, before the despair had swallowed her whole and spat out the shell of who she used to be.

Melanie leaned back against the pillow and pinched the bridge of her nose, pushing away the images that had awoken her—long corridors and her daughter calling for her and the train freezing before her eyes.

“Too much on my mind,” she said—not a lie, but not the whole truth, either.

Bennett knew, if she had to venture a guess. She had bolted awake in his bed with her heart racing and a scream clawing its way out of her throat enough times for him to understand _something._ He had never asked though, waiting for her to come to him on her own terms, and for that, she was grateful.

It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t push now, either.

 _“Anything else I can help you with?”_ he asked instead.

 _I wish you were here,_ she thought. She would not have minded if he took her mind off of everything the way she liked. Melanie glanced at the clock sitting on the shelf above her desk. His shift would not be over for five more hours, and by then, she would already be checking the breakfast menu in First and going through rosters for Third.

Maybe later.

“A seven-word letter for _Difficult choice,”_ she offered.

He let out a soft laugh and made a tightness in her chest ease.

_“Problem?”_

“Doesn’t fit.”

They spoke for another half an hour, until she started to yawn, soothed by the sound of his voice and the steady assuredness of his presence that felt almost palpable even from some fifty feet and two doors between them.

 _“Get some sleep, Mel,”_ he said softly, as if sensing it.

That, or maybe her words started to slur. The latter, she suspected.

“Four more words,” she insisted. “I’ll never finish it if I give up now.”

He chuckled. _“Yeah, that sounds like quite the dilemma.”_

“Hm, that fits.”

_“What does?”_

“Dilemma. Difficult choice.” She scribbled the letters in. Paused. “I just wanted to—” _hear your voice._ She didn’t say it, though she suspected she didn’t need to.

 _“I’m glad you called,”_ he murmured. _“I kinda hate not having you here.”_

“You have the train, Ben.”

She could see it in her mild then—the smile spreading across his features and the endless track ahead of him as Snowpiercer continued to cut through the night.

_“I have the train.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Someone please talk to me about this show and these two and the finale :) Als, what are your Season 2 predictions? 
> 
> I'm also on [Tumblr](https://hiraeth-doux.tumblr.com/), now and then.


End file.
